Happy Birthday! And Other Stories Part 13

*We will go to Amreeka,' she says with ironclad conviction.

He laughs, for what do you do with a person whose ambitions are as improbable as his sight?

She is offended. *Don't you want to get away from here?'

*No,' he says simply. Having made the pa.s.sage through darkness seems to him journey enough.

*Well, Bobby wants to take me there. I told him I'd go if you go. In Amreeka you can get your eyesight back. I can get away from Sheel. We will all be so happy.'

A cold hand squeezes the back of Gyan's neck.

*Bobby?'

*I call him Bobby but his name is Mr Bob Keen. He is my gora sahib from the organization.' Her voice has become soft. She whispers, *They say that nothing is stronger than the heart of a volunteer. After meeting Bobby, I know what they mean.'

Gyan feels as though a sack of cement has been poured into him and quickly hardened. He slumps. Is this heartbreak?

Parvati seems blind to his pain as she buries her face in Gyan's neck, clasping it. His skin burns in her grip.

*I am so tired,' she says.

And suddenly she is sobbing, extravagantly.

At first he says nothing. Then, *I know. I know,' he utters and gathers the courage to bring his hand to her head. She becomes quiet beneath it.

He dredges up some cheerfulness and says, *I will come with you.' What is he saying?

Before he can retract, Parvati claps her hands with glee. *Gyan, I knew you'd say yes. You never disappoint me.' She moves closer to him till he can smell the onion egg curry she must have had for lunch. *You know that you are my dearest friend, the only one I trust. I want to give you something.'

There is a sound of something sliding against the gravel on the floor. His hands touch a wooden box. *Can you keep this safely for me? It has our air tickets and other doc.u.ments that we need to go to Amreeka ...'

*Why can't your Bobby keep the box?'

*He has already gone back to Amreeka.'

*So he left you?'

*Chaa! Don't be silly. His visa expired, almost four weeks ago, so he had to leave.'

Around the same time that she started visiting him, Gyan realized.

*Why didn't he take you with him?'

*My visa is taking time to come.'

*Why don't you keep the box then? It will be simpler.'

*Keep this in my house?' she sn.i.g.g.e.rs. *What if Sheel opens it and sees what's inside? Yesterday he almost opened an envelope I'd got from Bobby. It's just a matter of a few days. My ... I mean, our visa ... will come and we can leave without being caught. Please, Gyan. You are my only hope.'

Gyan puts the box to his side, safe between him and the wall.

Parvati stands up, and says, *Sheel will be back in four hours. I will go home and start packing. We must be prepared to leave any time.'

*Okay.'

*And keep the box safe. If Sheel finds it, he will kill me.'

*Okay,' Gyan says evenly.

*Good boy,' she says, mimicking something she's probably heard in a movie.

He detects a stupid triumph in her voice, and she's gone.

He tries not to, but a tear rolls down his face. And then he's crying. Without holding back. Like he did when he was little and didn't know that the tears dripping from his eyes were for a sadness that he didn't yet have full knowledge of. He cries for all the years that he hasn't. Then darkness sets in.

He becomes conscious when someone throws water on his face. He splutters.

*Are you okay?' Sunder asks. *I got scared seeing you sprawled on the floor like you were dead. What happened?'

Gyan sits up. He doesn't reply.

*Is it because Aacharvati gave you this box?'

*You opened the box?' Gyan screams. He has never screamed at his brother-in-blindness before. There is a stunned silence.

*I ... I am sorry, Gyan Da. I didn't know what to do. I thought you were dead and it had something to do with this box.'

*How dare you!'

*But there's not even anything important in it. Just some funny-looking money, some blue book with her photo in it, and a ticket with her name going to some place called Dallas.'

There's no ticket in the box for him. She lied to him.

Another thought strikes Gyan. *How do you know what's inside the box?' He stands up quickly, leaning against the wall. *Can you see what's inside it?' He pushes Sunder who has also stood up. *You, you can see. All this time, all these years, you could see. You ... liar ... scoundrel ... you ... how could you?'

*Shhh ... shhh. Don't shout-the whole mohulla will hear you. We will not be able to live here any more.'

*I don't care,' Gyan screams louder. *You lied to me, you made me believe that you were a victim like me, my brother-in-blindness.'

*Listen, Gyan Da. Please, listen to me. I was blind, just like you. Nanu took me to a hospital one day, where they fixed my eyes. He did it because he knew I wanted to be an actor. I have been able to see after that, not very well, but well enough.'

*Nanu got your eyes fixed? Then why didn't you have him fix my eyes also?'

*Nanu didn't have any more money. Don't make a face. He really didn't. In fact, he borrowed money from Taku Bhai for my surgery and ...' Sunder's voice chokes. *And he lost his life because of me. When he couldn't pay him back, Taku Bhai's men threw him out of a train. It wasn't an accident like we were told.'

He begins sobbing. *My sight became a curse; it killed our Nanu. I hate it, I hate it that I can see.'

*Why didn't you tell me that you were cured?'

*Nanu made me promise not to tell anyone,' Sunder replies between sobs. *He couldn't afford to get everyone's eyes fixed.'

*Then why did you keep pretending once Nanu was gone, when the others left?' My voice comes out louder than I expect. *Why are you doing this? I am not a bad person. Answer me.'

Sunder pauses for a moment, and adds: *I make double the money as a blind clip-seller than a normal one. People love me. We live in this kholi, paying only three hundred rupees rent, when there are thousands willing to pay a hundred times more. And it's only because they think that we're both blind.'

*Who's telling you to stay here? You should have left after the surgery and become a film star.'

Sunder is quiet and after a long while his voice wavers, *I tried. But I was not good enough to be a film star. The producers told me to dance, to project my voice, to build a big body ... I couldn't. And after Nanu's death, everyone left this kholi, but you refused to go, saying that this was your home. You were all alone, and I knew you had nowhere else to go. I stayed back because I love you.'

*Love me?' Gyan laughs. *Are you able to even speak the truth any more? Chaa! You even lied that I was like your brother.'

*Gyan Da, you are my brother. I lied to you for your own sake. I knew that you wouldn't love me if I wasn't blind like you.'

*Don't blame me for your lies. I didn't tell you to look after me. You are a liar, a cheat,' Gyan shouts and pushes Sunder. *I hate you. Get out. Get out of this house.' He hears Sunder's knees thud on the ground.

*I was right,' Sunder shouts back. *You only loved me because you thought I was a victim like you.' He shuffles to his feet. *You only love those you think are martyrs like you. Like Aacharvati. But people like that will never love you back.'

*How do you know that she doesn't love me?'

Sunder laughs, his voice thin. *I saw some photos that were proof enough.'

Gyan walks over to where Sunder's voice is coming from and catches him by the collar.

*What photos? Are there photos in that box? What is in those photos?'

There is a silence. Sunder lets out a long sigh and Gyan hears him run his fingers through his long hair.

*Tell me,' Gyan screams.

*Nothing, nothing important,' he says, guilt making his voice thinner.

*Tell me or I will burn down this kholi. This whole chawl.'

*Okay, okay. Calm down. The box had an envelope with a stamp on it. Someone must have posted it to her-Bobby-it has photos of some gora and Aacharvati.'

*What are they doing in the photos?'

*Nothing.'

*What are they doing? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.' Gyan scrambles around and lifts what must be a photo from the box. *This photo, describe it.'

Sunder takes the photo from his hand and when he speaks, his voice is resigned. *Aacharvati's face is buried in his neck.'

Like it was in his a few hours ago.

Gyan tears the photo with a roar and throws it on what he hopes is Sunder's face. *Get out, you liar, get out. Get out.'

He hears Sunder's footsteps shuffle out of the kholi in haste.

Gyan pictures Bobby and Parvati in bed, a week before Bobby's departure. Bobby leans over and whispers to Parvati, *Make friends with that cane brother. I'll send you a ticket to the USA and you can hide it in his house. That way no one will find out that you're running away with me.'

Gyan throws the box to the ground hoping it will break, like him, and then he too falls. This time no one picks him up. He lies down till he can hear nothing except the heavy breath of betrayal.

Parvati is in her kholi. Alone. She is singing. Packing, Gyan supposes, all the little things that she imagines she'll need in America. Hatred seizes him.

His unrequited love is so much more agonizing than his blindness.

Parvati has to be taught a lesson, Gyan thinks. I have to do something And then he knows what he must do.

He listens for noises outside his door. There are none. So no one is in the veranda. He picks up the box from the ground, and walks across his kholi, over the threshold. He steps outside and crosses the veranda, which he has memorized in the wake of Parvati's footsteps, and reaches her door. He leans over, his hand searches for something and finds two rocks, holding down a sheet covering a trunk. He lifts one rock in his hand, spins around and throws it hard towards the chair next to the clothesline, where Dhoopwali Mai always sits. There is no sound. He's missed. He takes the second rock and does the same. It lands smack on the steel chair, bounces against it and then rattles like a skeleton. There is no other sound. Dhoopwali Mai is not sitting on that chair, not watching what he is about to do.

He turns around, facing the door again, the door that he has so often wanted to enter. It has never happened and now it never will.

The loss does not feel like it is only his.

Gyan bends and puts the box down on the floor outside Parvati's door. He turns and walks back to his kholi.

Sheel will be home soon, he knows, and will find the box. He will open it and see what he must see, what Gyan wants him to see.

Parvati will never be able to step out of the house again.

Is it a tragedy, what he's doing to her? Or what she has done to him? Or what the world has done to them both? He doesn't think so, for tragedy is an end in itself, an introduction to a new way of life, something to get used to. That's all.

Will she feel the same way? Probably not. But by then, forever crippled like him, she'll understand and they'll be joined together in eternal darkness.

THE BAILOUT.

Elisa met Ram at a time when brown immigrants were considered cheap labour, willing to work double shifts and faulted only for their proclivity for smelly curries. It was only five years later, when America was buried in its own economic grave and brown immigrants became *jobstealers' and *terrorists' who continued making smelly curries, that colour became an issue between Ram and Elisa; specifically the colour of Elisa's MasterCard: Gold. By then they were married and planning to have two children, so Elisa dragged herself to their local gym where Ram was lifting twenty-pound dumb-bells, and confessed: *I've racked up thirty grand in credit card bills.'

Ram-who got dry skin in winter and never raised his voice-shouted: *Why, when I've been laid off and there are no jobs, do you act so irresponsibly?' Elisa cried. Later, restored to his calm self, he rocked her to sleep with endless questioning: what are we going to do, how will we get out of this, have I done something to bring this bad karma upon us?

Elisa didn't have a solution, but the next evening she came home from her job as a travel agent to find that Ram had made polenta gnocchi-her favourite dish-and a list of *exit strategies', a term he'd learned at the evening MBA cla.s.ses he took twice a week. Once the meal was finished, Elisa leaned back in her chair-wasting, wasting, Ram grumbled looking at her plate-and they reviewed their options. No, she couldn't ask her brother in Houston for money, he was expecting his fourth child. Yes, Ram was going to stop eating beef, which had brought this bad karma upon them. No, they couldn't apply for bankruptcy-it was against his upbringing. No, she couldn't ask for a raise in this job market. No, he couldn't work as a janitor at the hospital-it was against his caste. What about her parents? No, her parents lived on social security, remember?

They had no options left; they'd have to downsize and move to that studio apartment building eighty miles away. Wait, what about his parents? His parents? Yes, they had money. No, he wouldn't ask them; they both knew that his parents' favours came with stipulations.

Yes-she brightened up-they would ask his parents, this was their only way out. She went up to Ram, slowly, using her s.e.xy walk, opening her shoulder-length blonde hair, swaying her reedy arms for he was an arm-man, bending her knees so he could reach her. He would ask them, yes? No harm in that, yes? I thought you didn't like them, he moaned, his large nose, lips and eyes becoming puckered together in the middle of his face. She rubbed up against him: I'll do whatever it takes, whatever.

They called his mother in India using a Reliance calling card that had nine-and-a-half minutes of talk time left. Five of those minutes were spent on protocol, Bibiji asked Elisa about Ram: was he fine, gargling with neem twigs for his sinus, sleeping before ten for his dark circles, and, since *Indians need Indian food like Americans need vitamins', was Elisa making dal makhani and b.u.t.ter chicken for him? Elisa didn't make her usual pistol-hand-in-mouth or knife-stab-in-chest gestures; she answered with yeses, sincerely and untruthfully. When there was a pause, indicating Elisa's turn to fill the conversation with ba.n.a.l questions, she asked if Babuji still had to wrap the towel around his neck before eating, was the mobility of his left arm better, was his tongue continuing to roll to the back of his mouth while sleeping? Bibiji answered in monosyllables, her husband's stroke didn't warrant talk time. Ram then briefed Bibiji on their situation, loyally taking equal blame for their debt. Only sixty seconds were left when he finished. This was not a conversation they could come back to, so he got straight to the point: can you bail us out? At fifty seconds Bibiji paused, at forty-five she said she'd ask Babuji, at forty she said yes. By the time the line got disconnected for lack of credit, they'd made an arrangement: Bibiji and Babuji would come to America and live with Ram and Elisa for a year (since Babuji needed fresh air-not to be found in Faridabad), and, in turn, they would transfer thirty thousand dollars through Western Union to them.